Warming up by making some trivets

After a few weeks of no woodworking, I figured I’d warm up my woodworking muscles by making a few trivets. Simple, fun, useful, and not to mention, quiet, exercises perfect for a couple free hours on a weeknight.

This is a great trick Jay van Arsdale taught us: using tape instead of clamps to saw the lattice beams. Unlike clamps, it’s much easier and quicker to flip and maneuver the beams as you do your saw and chisel work.

Saw the lines.

Chop to take out the wastes with just a couple light hammer taps. The rest just fall out with a little bit of wiggling.

Then some clean up work a chisel.

For the 3-by-3 patterns, one of the notches on each beam is actually on the other side. This allows for a weaving pattern/puzzle and makes them mechanically stronger as you don’t need to use glue for any of them.